Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-03-08

society who delegates to another the exer-
else of a sovereign right. Propositions
haze lately appeared in reviews and
pamphlets for compulsory methods to COM
pei the American sovereign to exercise the
privileges he enjoys; to attach penalties
for the non-performanee of political duty I;
to cut short the right of the voter if it is
not exercised in primaries, caucuses and
elections All such remedies, as Simon
Sterne SO well puts 1t, in treating cog
nate subject are to the body polite what
quack medicines are to the physical body
We will not shake off bossism under COM
pulsion. We can be rid Of it only by
voluntarily resuming the prerogatiye that
we have permitted the bosses to usurp.
Men will buy nominations only so long
as bosses have power to deliver the
goods, and that power they will possess
Just as long as the voters neglect to engage
in the business of distributing nominations
for themselves. Men will use bosses to
accomplish legislative ends, municipal con-
troll and the distribution of patronage,
Just so long as the people neglect to exer-
else their sovereign right to legislate for
themselves, determine municipal policy
and make Office, place and public service
the reward of fitness, rather than the
recompense for partisanship.
at is a cardinal doctrine" said Pro-
fessor Summer, sin any sound political sys-
TEN, that rights and duties must be in
equilibrium" 1t is therefore an immoral
system where this equilibrium is dis
turbed. and classes arrogate to themselves
the rights, while throwing the duties upon
others. Our present system gives to the
bosses all the loayes and fishes, and to the
voters all the burdens of governmental
support. The former have become practi-
cally privileged class, and rule as despot-
ically as the most exclusive classes in the
most absolute autocracies. They have
debauched the public conscience by their
practices, until the announcement no
longer shocks the public conscience
that they mark their price upon off
cial station worth the having, and ped
die patronage as hucksters do their goods
Clustering as groups ofrogues, they manage
cities and States as they would houses
of ill-fame, ruling them in their own in
terest by bribing electors, threatening
those who cannot stomach their system,
and plundering the treasures over which
stand sentinels of their appointment, while
they solicit in the market-places and pro-
cure for the lusts of their clients In fact
they have so brought reproach upon the
machinery of politics, that when the APP
peal is made to self-respecting voters to
come out and do battle with these Appel
lyones in the town meeting and ward eau
Gus, the response is made much like that
Holland formulated mo good man can
undertake to have anything to do with the
primaries, unless he belongs to the ma
chine without loss of self-respect" The
mistake in this excuse is apparent. If the
friends of free, full, fair and honest ex-
preston by American sovereigns would
unite, they could at least test the question
which is in the majority, the clan of the
boss or the men of clean politics, and de-
termine the question whether bossism is to
be made respectable or remain odious.